Robert Gesink

Robert Gesink Just Wants to Win Bike Races

After a few star-crossed years, the Dutch rider talks about his team, his 2013 season, and coming back from adversity

james startt

(Photo by Relaxing during training camp, Gesink, 26, talks about his climbing, his injuries, and his desire to win any race he can. (James Startt))

After finishing fifth in the 2010 Tour de France, 25-year-old Dutch rider Robert Gesink was instantly hailed has the next great stage-race rider in country steeped in Tour de France glory. But while injuries and personal tragedy have sidetracked his Tour de France efforts, Gesink has shown himself to be a more complete rider, winning races like the Montreal Grand Prix and the Tour of California. And in the end, winning bike races, any bike race, is what motivates Gesink the most. Bicycling caught up with the amiable Dutch rider while he was training with Team Blanco in Mallorca, Spain.

With your tall and thin profile, not to mention your ability to climb mountains, you have the reputation of being a classic Dutch climber. But you are much more. You’ve had excellent results in one-day Classics, winning the Montreal Grand Prix in 2011 and finishing third in Amstel. And you have had some very strong time-trial performances.

I love the Classics. I think I can do well in some of the really, really tough Classics. In most of the Classics, like Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Amstel, I have shown that I can be there at the front. Winning is always difficult, but I am there. And of course I like to climb. But I am taller than most GC riders and that puts me at a disadvantage in the high mountains. But I have finished in the top 10 in a Grand Tour four times already so I know I can be there too.

The last two years have been hard, and breaking a leg last year certainly didn’t help. But I feel like I am back now. And I need to be, because my team, Blanco, needs to have some good results since we are looking for a sponsor.

Your previous sponsor, Rabobank, withdrew its sponsorship after nearly 20 years in the sport as a result of numerous doping scandals at the end of 2012. It still assured you salaries, but for how long?

One year for sure and then we will see. But we definitely need to attract new sponsors as soon as possible.

You have spoken a fair amount about your desire to keep the team together. Obviously you would have no trouble finding another contract, but you clearly seem motivated by the idea of staying with your current team.

Yes, for sure. Everybody here on Team Blanco has a lot of trust in my capabilities and I have a lot of trust in them. I definitely want to stick together with them because it is a real friendly group. We want to stay together as a whole group so finding a sponsor is really important.

You’ve decided to do the Tour of Italy this year. Is that one of the reasons, so that you can get a big result early in the season?

Well we already started really well, in the Tour Down Under, but we have to keep that going. But for me there are two main reasons for riding the Giro. One is that I don’t like to do the same season every year. It is important to change, to have new objectives. That’s what motivates me, but also yes, we need to get results early this year. Also there are a lot of good young Dutch riders on the team, so we just really need to keep this thing going.

What has happened with Team Blanco after Rabobank withdrew sponsorship reminds me of the transformation of Team Highroad after its sponsor, Telekom, pulled out. Instead of destroying the team, the whole process really unified its members and they became the winningest team in cycling.

I think everyone has learned from what has happened, because I don’t think anybody saw it coming. As a result I think everybody is giving a little bit more than they were already giving. Hopefully that will give us the extra push to get more results and we will find a sponsor. We have a great team structure here and I know that the whole team has been doing things the right way, the clean way, for the past five or six years. In a way, we are paying for past mistakes because a lot of things changed in cycling, and especially on our team, after 2007 [when team leader Michael Rasmussen was expelled from the Tour while wearing the yellow jersey]. And on our team there have been several huge management changes. These have definitely been difficult times, but there are a lot of guys, a lot of young riders that have already made the most difficult steps, that of turning professional. Now we just need to find a sponsor to help us continue.

Growing up, were you motivated by all great bike races or did you dream of the Tour de France? For me there were always a lot of races that were important.

I am Dutch, and the Amstel Gold Race is really important. And there are the real Classics like Liege-Bastogne-Liege or the Tour of Lombardy. You know often a season is judged by how well you did in the Tour de France. But for the riders it is completely different. It is also how you did in the Vuelta or the Giro or other really important races. So I am pretty much motivated for every race I start.

Do you have a race you most dream of winning?

I would like to win a Grand Tour, any Grand Tour. I am still improving and I think it is more and more possible. And cycling is cleaning up, so my chances are getting better.

You had a rough couple of years with injuries, not to mention personal tragedy when your father died.

Yes, it has been really rough. It started when my father died. He crashed on a mountain bike, fell on his head, and after two weeks he died. That really got me thinking. I was saying to myself, “What are you doing racing down a mountain at 100 kilometers an hour! And what does it matter how fast you climb up? You are not changing peoples’ lives!” It just didn’t make sense any more. Then I had a bad crash in the Tour de France that year. Cycling just lost its fun for me. My father was the one who got me into cycling, taking me out for rides on the mountain bike, and we would still ride together when I had an easy day. He was one of my biggest fans. So it was just really strange to lose someone you love so much in a sport that you also love so much. Cycling just didn’t make sense to me anymore.

But after a year I managed to find some fun in it again, but then in 2012 Tour de France, I had another bad crash and it all came back. What made it worse was that the Dutch fans started turning against me. But you know what they say, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Your big objective this year is the Tour of Italy. Have you looked at the course much?

This year I really wanted to focus on stage races, starting already with Paris-Nice; so riding the Giro fits into that kind of a program. In terms of this year’s Giro I went to the presentation and saw the profile, but hey, every Grand Tour is really difficult and there will definitely be a lot of good guys to beat.

You are the defending champion of the Tour of California, even though you won’t defend your title this year since you are riding in the Tour of Italy. But it has been an important race for your career.

Absolutely. It is funny—I am always good in races overseas. There is California of course, but also the Montreal Grand Prix and the Tour of Oman. There is something about races far away from home that are good for me. Some might say that it is the lack of pressure, but I think it is more that I just adapt easily. When you race overseas you often don’t have all of the luxury of the races here in Europe. But then once again I really like racing hard in every race. I just can’t sit back in the peloton and do nothing. I like to win races.